Only Human
by JuniorMintJulep
Summary: McCoy's having a hard time lately, and although some of it is his fault, he has a lot on his mind, too. He's only human, after all.
1. Chapter 1

Only Human

By JuniorMintJulep

It all started with Chekov. The kid just wouldn't leave.

"Chekov, he's gonna be fine. You need to get some rest." McCoy tried to keep his tone even, but goddammit, it'd been a hell of a day. Or was it going on two days now? He'd lost track soon after the first members of the landing party beamed up, and his reality had shifted into that weird, surreal other-time that ran alongside the everyday world, where the only thing he could see was the broken body in front of him and the others that were waiting and hurting. It was over now, and he should have been glad for it, but as the last effects of the adrenaline faded he was left only with an exhaustion that pinched his eyes, a nausea-tinged headache, and a stubborn, guilt-ridden Russian.

"No, no, no, I will not leave him. This is my fault."

Sulu was the last one he worked on, not because he had the least-serious injuries, but because he was the last they'd pulled out of the rubble of the archeological ruins the team had been surveying. After the earthquake ended, and before the aftershocks had even subsided, Kirk was searching through the dust and debris for the two men, but it was Spock who found the ensign near the entrance of a dry, collapsed aqueduct, with only minor injuries, and Sulu further in, his leg pinned beneath a boulder. The doctor had heard Kirk tell Carter, as she cleaned up the captain's torn and bloodied hands, that the whole time they were digging, the kid was babbling about how Sulu shoved him out of the way just before the structure came tumbling down, and how it should have been him.

Even in the twenty-third century, crush syndrome was tricky business, but they'd gotten to him in time, and if McCoy could really believe in a higher power he would have promised to send up a prayer of thanks over the shot of whiskey he was very much looking forward to having. Just as soon as he could talk some sense into Chekov.

But the navigator was just sitting there, head in his hands, his shoulders all bunched up. A fine, reddish dust still coated the curls on his head and the back of his shirt. Chapel, tired of watching him pace back and forth, back and forth, had dragged a chair around to the side of Sulu's bed and pushed him gently down onto it. Where now he sat, and would not budge. He rubbed the bandage on his temple and McCoy gave a little kick to the base of the chair.

"I told you to stop that. And go, now. Like I said, sitting there staring at him won't make him wake up any sooner and it won't change what happened. Remember what we talked about a while back, how you can't control some things and you just have to live with that?"

The ensign groaned and shook his head. "Yes, sir. But you don't understand, sir. He is—he is . . ." Either he couldn't find the words he was searching for, or he couldn't find the strength to say them, because he fell silent and his gaze drifted to the unconscious form next to him.

_He is your friend _McCoy finished silently for him. The doctor knew that; he'd watched with interest as the relationship grew between these two men who were so different—Sulu the daring, swashbuckling risk-taker, and Chekov the cautious perfectionist. The one, a Starfleet brat who had lived all the way across the galaxy on an Earth colony with a history of violence; and the other, who grew up a sheltered prodigy on the outskirts of Moscow, the youngest of five kids (a number nearly unheard-of these days), and who had never left Earth before finding himself unexpectedly assigned to the _Enterprise_ on that fateful day.

Something had clicked between them, though—when you work alongside someone day after day in the stressful sort of conditions often found aboard a starship, you tend to either love them or loathe them after a while, and these two had chosen the amicable route. In the last several months he'd seen the friendship intensify over many rounds of vodka and sake, and more than a few rounds of fencing. From the chatter he'd overheard in the rec room, he gathered that the pair had also earned a formidable reputation as master gamers among the holo-groups. And based on the looks he'd seen the two exchange lately, the nuances of their body language, he wondered if something deeper was developing. But that, of course, was none of his business unless they made it his business.

He also knew that if it were Jim or even Spock lying on that bed, he'd be sitting there, too. But the kid was injured, and enough was enough.

He looked at the ceiling and rubbed his face, frowning at the stubble he found there. "How many times have I told you to stop calling me _sir_? Get outta here, Chekov. Go back to your quarters, and go to sleep."

"Doctor—" Chapel had that look on her face, the one that said she was going to grant herself permission to speak freely. He put up a hand to silence her.

"They both need their rest. You think he can actually sleep sitting there in that chair, Nurse?"

Chris narrowed her eyes at him, and it was the closest she would come to challenging him in front of another crewmember, but the message was clear. He ignored it.

"Getout, Ensign. _Now_," he snapped. "And be thankful your friend is alive."

Chekov looked up at him, and with the shadows under his eyes he looked much older than his eighteen years. Then his head went back down and, to McCoy's horror, some of the most wretched and forlorn sobs he'd ever heard came pouring out of him. His entire body shook and he pulled his knees up to his chest, and in an instant Chapel was there, her arm around him.

McCoy noted absently that Chekov's scalp laceration was bleeding again, and he sighed. "Look, Pavel—"

"Doctor McCoy," Chapel cut in, "I know you need to follow-up on those lab results we sent over earlier today. Why don't you let me take care of Ensign Chekov?" She was the consummate professional, pleasant but firm—for the both of them, he suspected—and he was grudgingly grateful that she'd provided him with an easy way out. He hesitated for only a moment before he nodded and turned toward his office.

Her glare made the back of his neck prickle as he passed. "Nice work, McCoy. Very nice," she murmured at him.

As he'd expected, it was only a few moments before the sounds from the adjoining room subsided. And he wasn't surprised when she appeared at his door, arms crossed and tight lines around her mouth.

"I need your approval to administer ten cc's of melorazine to Ensign Chekov and admit him overnight for observation. We have plenty of empty beds, so I can put him next to Sulu."

He poured the whiskey and closed the bottle with great care. "Yeah, that's fine," he muttered. "Log it in." He turned his attention to the stack of datachips on his desk and pretended to sort through them, waiting for her to leave. But she didn't, she just stood there in silence, and he finally yielded to the tiny seed of guilt that had taken root in his gut.

"What is it, Chapel? Just say it already." He heard the irritation in his voice, but she didn't back down.

"All right then, I will. Everyone knows you flunked Bedside Manner 101, Leo, but it's not like you to talk to your patients like that. At least," she amended, "not when they're here through no fault of their own. You look at Sulu, and what do you see? Probably the same thing I see: five hours of surgery, functioning kidneys, a femur that will heal, and a patient who will pull through. That's great, but what do you think Chekov sees when he looks at him? Because I promise you, he's in more pain than Sulu right now."

His eyes went involuntarily to the biobed across the infirmary, and from the distance now he could see Chekov's best friend in a different way, lying there as pale as death, a tube down his throat, IV line taped to his arm, his body mottled with purple and black contusions.

"But he's gonna walk away, Chris. Chekov's in there acting like Sulu's ready for a funeral shroud, even though he'll wake up in a day or two and be fine, and before you know it he'll walk out of here." His voice rose and as the words left his mouth he realized he was arguing with himself, not her, and that somehow this was bigger than just Sulu, in a vague and primal way that he didn't quite understand yet, and could not begin to explain to her.

"Isn't that the point?" She gave him an uncertain and slightly annoyed look, and he knew that she had just recognized the disconnect he was feeling, that what he was saying was not what she was hearing. Hoping to forestall any further probing, he held his hands up in surrender and tried to gentle his voice.

"I'm sorry, Chris. You're right, I was out of line. I'll talk to him in the morning, okay? In the meantime, I'll take my own advice and get some sleep."

Her eyebrows went up, but her stance relaxed a little. "Hmm. I'll hold you to that, you can be sure of it." She stifled a yawn and leaned her head against the entryway. "Are you all right? I mean, really all right?"

He was glad she couldn't see his face as he bent to retrieve a stray datachip from where it had fallen on the deck. The iciness was gone from her, because she couldn't hold a grudge any longer than he could, but it was replaced with something far more threatening. The urge to gather her in his arms, to hold her and be held, to taste her, was almost irresistible.

"I'm fine. I'll be fine." He gave his full attention to replacing the chip on the stack with the others.

"Uh-huh. You know, for some reason I don't believe you, but I guess I'll have to live with that for now." She glanced at his untouched shot glass. "You want some of that melorazine yourself while I have it out?"

"No. Not tonight," he answered, too quickly, but she only nodded and pushed away from the door and after a quick, unexpected kiss, she tousled his hair and pinched his cheek. "Don't forget to shave," she said over her shoulder. "Or you'll look like a Tellarite before too much longer. Have a good night."

_Not very damn likely_. As soon as the door slid behind her, he flipped on his computer terminal and scrolled through the screen full of unread messages to find the one at the very end, the one he'd opened—was it just yesterday, before all of this started? —and then pushed away to the back of his brain out of necessity. He had hoped, for one wildly irrational moment, that maybe it was just a jumbled memory, a hallucinatory by-product of his sleep-deprived brain, but there it was, in stark black and white, and he stared at the subject line with a mixture of dread and anxiety that drew upon his last reserves and made him glad he hadn't eaten anything in a while. He clicked it open with fingers that did not seem to belong to him, and before the night was over he would close it and open it more times that he could count.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: The death of McCoy's father was shown in that movie I like to pretend didn't happen (ST V: The Final Frontier), but whatever else can be said about it, we learned some interesting things about the Enterprise gang in it. From what I've read been able to gather, it's generally accepted that the illness and death occurred early in McCoy's Starfleet career. So I thought it would be interesting to explore the changing dynamics of the crew, as they grow into their new roles, with the added complication of his learning of and coping with his father's illness in the background (or foreground, as it were).

****************************

The bridge was quiet this morning, more so than usual. McCoy stepped out of the lift and no one looked up, not even Kirk, who was standing at Spock's station in deep conversation with the Vulcan. He saw the way everyone was watching the captain without really looking at him. And he noted, but didn't really consider, the oddly muted tones of the bridge crew, their murmurs barely audible over the background noises of the sensors and computer chatter. In retrospect, he should have paid all of this more heed, but he had other things on his mind.

When McCoy sidled close to Uhura's station and stood there, just within her peripheral vision, tapping a stylus against the edge of her console, she didn't immediately acknowledge him. He took a curious look at her readouts and squinted at the data that was scrolling past too quickly for his brain. When he waved a hand in front of her face, she blinked, let out a nearly inaudible sigh, and slid a finger across the middle screen to freeze it before looking up at him. Her eyes were bloodshot and he wondered, counting three empty coffee cups and a barely-touched bagel on her console, how long she had already been on duty.

She gave him a perfunctory smile, which he returned in kind.

"What can I do for you, Doctor?"

"Glad you asked, Lieutenant," he drawled. "See, I've been trying for the last six hours or so to transmit a message, just a little text message, something I've done, oh, I don't know, a few hundred thousand times in my life maybe, and I can't seem to get it through the queue. Any chance you could give me a hand with it?"

"No." She turned back to her board. He was unsure he'd heard correctly.

"No?" he echoed. "As in, 'no, not right now, but come back later'?"

"No," she repeated, and tapped her screen back to life.

Well, maybe she'd been up all night, but so had he, and at least she'd had the benefit of three cups of coffee. He couldn't quite stifle his irritation.

"No, you can't, or no, you won't?" His voice rose a little, more than he intended.

At that, she pulled her earpiece out and leveled a not at all friendly stare at him. From the corner of his eye he saw Spock pause in his discussion with Kirk and glance his way, and he should have listened to the warning bells going off in his head.

"I'm busy here, and I don't have time to argue about this. Sir."

The irritation blossomed into anger, sooner than he would have expected, and he leaned over her console with a scowl.

"Well, what the hell is the problem, Uhura? You're supposed to be the best damn comm officer in the whole goddamn fleet, or so they tell me. It would take you all of two minutes to run a diagnostic on the subspace relay network. Honestly, I would've thought you'd already detected and repaired the problem by now, anyway."

She swiveled in her chair and stood to face him, her eyes flashing. In the back of his mind he noticed that the hushed conversations behind him had ceased altogether and the warning bells in his head had turned into klaxons. He backed away and after making a quick assessment, decided he had just enough time to cut his losses and beat a hasty exit before this escalated further than he was prepared to handle right now—while he was certainly not the avoidant type, neither was Uhura, and really, an hour or two for both of them to cool off a little wouldn't make any difference at this point. But it was too late, he realized with dismay, as she tossed her own stylus on the console with a clatter and pointed a perfectly manicured finger at him.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, Doctor, I _am_ the best damn comm officer in the while goddamn fleet, or so Captain Kirk tells me. And that's who I answer to, not you. Now, if you had bothered to access the shipwide messages that Ensign Chekov and I sent out—" she glanced at the chrono "—seven hours and twenty-two minutes ago, you would know that we are on standby alert and under a communications blackout until further notice. I assume you were not aware of our status?" _Because if you were, and we're still standing here having this discussion, you are a total ass._ She didn't have to say it, he read it loud and clear in her expression, and felt like a total ass anyway. He'd fucked this up, just like the fiasco with Chekov, and in the years they'd known each other, she'd been frustrated, exasperated, and annoyed with him, but he'd never seen this kind of fire directed at him.

He opened his mouth to reply, but her eyes flicked away and he felt a familiar presence behind him.

"Jim, I didn't know about it. Uhura—"

"Stand down, Lieutenant," Kirk's tone was mild even as he interrupted McCoy.

"What's this about, Jim? We're out here in the middle of nowhere, so who are we trying to hide from, anyway? And _until further notice_? What does that—"

"Come with me."

The clipped tone sent a shiver down the back of McCoy's neck, and it took a moment for him to realize that it was directed at him. Kirk didn't pause to check that McCoy was following as he strode across the bridge toward the ready room.

This was a cramped, functional room, as if it were a last-minute addition to the original plans, tacked on by well-meaning human factors engineers who had little understanding of actual starship operations. So far, it had been largely unused; Kirk preferred to be on the bridge, among his crew, even when working on the sorts of administrative tasks that would be better suited to this space. So the room had a bare, neglected look about it, the gray walls unbroken but for a small viewport, the gray desktop holding only a comm terminal and a box of what looked to be bits of broken circuit testers and transtators. As the door slid shut and Kirk turned on him, his muscles taut with fury, McCoy wondered fleetingly if the engineers had also thought to soundproof the room.

"Jim, I just—"

"Listen to me." Before he could blink, Kirk was there, just inches away from his face, and he froze.

"There are certain conditions under which I expect my CMO to publicly raise well-founded objections to my decisions. The inconvenience of not being able to transmit a personal message during a class one comm blackout is _not_ one of those conditions. I have orders to which you are not privy, and I depend on you, as one of my senior officers, to set an example for the rest of the crew." He hesitated and his eyes hardened. "If you continue to take advantage of our history and friendship within the context of our current relationship, I will advise you to seek another assignment. Do you understand, Doctor?"

"Yes, sir."

McCoy stared at a point over his captain's head and had to remind himself to breathe. At least Kirk didn't yell, but he didn't need to. He wondered when exactly this had happened, this evolution from a brash, impulsive smartass with the bravado of a street kid to a confident commander who carried himself with such formidable force. There was a little bit of Pike, and maybe an echo of Chandra—he'd certainly never heard the word _privy_ come out of Jim Kirk's mouth before—and after sorting through his emotions for a moment he came up with pride, mixed with a healthy dose of respect and a twinge of sorrow.

And then he realized that this had the sound of something that had been building, and too long deferred. Snippets of recent conversations and department head meetings, challenges cut short and narrow glances, flashed through his head. _Shit_.

"And how the hell could you not be aware of the alert and blackout?"

"I was working on some research in the med library all night and then came straight to the bridge, sir. I haven't really talked to anyone this morning yet."

He risked a look at Kirk and saw there a reflection of his own regret for just an instant before the captain turned his gaze to the small viewport, where he stood in silence for several long moments, arms tense and folded across his chest. McCoy waited him out, caught between two spaces, his own thoughts clamoring for attention even as he saw now in Jim's profile the tension in his jaw, the weariness around his eyes that hadn't been there a few months ago. He tried to remember the last time he'd seen the captain smile.

"Damn. This is awkward." Jim blew out his breath and ran his fingers through his hair, then looked at McCoy and grimaced. "Relax, Bones, I'm done. Knowing you, though," he added, "this won't be the last time we have a conversation like this."

McCoy focused his stare on the stars streaming past and chose his next words carefully. "Things are different between us now, Captain. They'll always be different, and I knew that going into this. I was wrong out there, and I know I've had this coming for a while."

Kirk leaned back against the edge of the desk and drummed his fingers against the edge. "I'm still trying to figure all of this out, too, you know," he said quietly. "This isn't something we spent a lot of time on at the Academy."

_No, because you're supposed to learn it in the real world, while serving under the mentorship of an experienced commander_, he wanted to retort, but didn't think this was the time to point that out, because Jim knew it, and anyway, what's done is done.

"Lonely up there?"

Kirk gave him a puzzled look.

"At the top?"

The captain's eyes crinkled a little and he finally smiled. "Yeah. More than I expected, Bones."

He could sympathize, having felt this too in his new role, though on a much smaller scale. Chapel was a friend and a subordinate _and_ a sometime-lover. Small consolation that it would be, at least Jim was spared that complication. As far as he knew, anyway.

"Well, I'm sorry I've made it harder for you."

Kirk waved his hand dismissively, and he knew that although this would be burned forever in his memory, the captain would never speak of it again.

"So…what's so urgent? Missed somebody's birthday? Forgot to renew your golf club membership?" His tone was teasing but with an undercurrent of concern, something else that was novel coming from Jim, but McCoy was not ready to talk about this. Not here, not now, in this still-uncomfortable space. They needed some time before he could go there, maybe some nice mundane conversations about the weather on the last planet or a little griping about how all the replicated food tasted like chicken, to dull the sharp edges of this exchange.

Besides, he knew Jim had his own demons to vanquish when it came to his father and father figures in general, and even with the recent transformations, McCoy didn't quite trust him to be capable of seeing beyond that. And, he reminded himself, the last time they'd talked about families, he'd ended up with a broken nose.

"You know I don't play golf."

The captain waited. McCoy cleared this throat. "It's, um, really personal." Kirk stared at him and he couldn't help feeling as though he were transported back to middle school, sitting in Principal Summers' office, trying not to squirm as she waited for him to explain his latest shenanigans. But it was safe to assume there was no detention or extra homework riding on this, so he managed to keep his mouth shut for once.

"Okay," Jim said finally. "All right. Well, we have a briefing scheduled for tomorrow morning, but right now I can tell you that we're not exactly in the middle of nowhere anymore. There _is_ a good reason for all of this. But we should be in the clear in a couple of days and we'll get your message out."

"Thank you."

Jim walked to the replicator slot on the wall and came back with two cups of coffee.

"Here. You look like you could use this." He held one of the cups out to McCoy. "Did you see the glare she gave you?"

_Uhura_. He cringed and took a sip of the coffee.

"I did."

"Good luck fixing that."

"Yeah."

"You might have your first-name privileges revoked."

He had to smile a little at that. "I might."

"Been putting in a lot of overtime lately? I haven't seen you around much."

"Just working on that research, is all."

"Can you take a break from it tonight and join Spock and me for dinner?"

He appreciated the gesture, and the subtle message it would send to those who had witnessed the events on the bridge this morning—and he had no doubt that the whole alpha shift, and his staff particularly, would be buzzing about it before he could even get to his office. So he squashed his reluctance and smiled at Kirk.

"Sure."

"Nineteen hundred?"

"Sounds great." He peered around the room, looking for a chrono, and found it behind the desk. "Um, Jim, I have a patient waiting for me."

Kirk emptied his coffee and tossed the cup into the recycler. "Right. See you later, then." He left at a brisk pace, but McCoy figured patients had been kept waiting since the days of shaman and peyote, and it wouldn't hurt Ensign Greggs to cool his heels for a minute while he gathered up enough courage to leave the room and walk across the bridge in Kirk's shadow.

******************************

Dinner was less painful than he'd expected, helped along no doubt by the brandy Jim brought with him. When the Vulcan rose to leave, McCoy put a hand out to stop him and asked what he'd been putting off all evening.

"Spock, do you happen to know where Uhura is tonight?"

"I do not. She indicated that she desired solitude, and I did not press the matter." He tilted his head. "Do you require her assistance?"

"Well, no, but I think I owe her an apology."

An eyebrow went up. "Indeed. However, she seemed quite adamant about being alone tonight." The Vulcan turned again to leave, then hesitated and gave McCoy the look that he'd come to recognize as a special kind of pity reserved for himself and other unfortunates.

"Doctor, I feel compelled to advise you that the lieutenant seemed distraught before your…encounter on the bridge this morning. It would be illogical to assume that her current state of mind is solely attributable to your tactless behavior."

He ignored the snort of laughter from Jim. "Thanks, Spock. I feel so much better about it now, really. Good evening, gentlemen."

After wandering through the observation deck and the rec room, he found her at last in the botany section. She was alone, and when he entered she glanced up at him only long enough to draw her mouth into a tight line before returning her attention to the collection of plants scattered around the worktables. He breathed in the earthy, intoxicating fragrance, a blending of pungent and floral and mossy, the calling cards of a dozen different worlds all competing for attention.

Her eyes were still bloodshot, and now red-rimmed, too. So Spock was right; the green-blooded hobgoblin had actually read her better than McCoy, and it really was more than just fatigue from pulling a double shift. He considered turning right around and leaving, because Uhura was better at pushing people away than letting them in, especially when she was hurt, and he wasn't sure he had the fortitude for that right now. But the threat of another sleepless night loomed, and in the end his guilt overrode his misgivings.

"Is this a new hobby?"

"I'm looking after Sulu's plants while he recovers." Her hands, almost lost in the Sulu-sized gloves, were swift among the greenery, snipping here and there with a pair of shears, and pausing occasionally to pick up a small watering can.

"Very thoughtful."

"It's the sort of thing friends do for each other." She managed to sound casual, but he heard the rebuke in it anyway. When she ducked to grab a bottle of fertilizer he saw her swipe her sleeve across her eyes while she was down there.

"I'm sorry, Uhura." He sighed and rubbed his face. "I think I've set a new personal record for apologies in the last few days."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better? Knowing that I'm in good company?"

"No, no, that's not at all what I meant. Just forget I said it." He pushed away from the ledge that bisected the room and moved toward her. One of the plants, one he'd never seen before, squeaked at him as he stepped past and he jumped. "What the hell is that?"

"Sulu calls it Gertrude." From the large center stalk popped a brilliant pink flower, and lord help him, he could have sworn it was somehow watching him. He reached out a finger to give it a tentative stroke and was rewarded with a cooing sound. It would be a useful addition to his office, he mused, for those overly-anxious patients: as soothing as a tribble, and undoubtedly a lot easier on the food supply.

"So did I singlehandedly ruin your day, or was it off to a bad start already?"

She disappeared with a larger pair of shears into a grouping of tall, spiky plants and was silent so long he began to wonder if she would reply. Then he heard a sigh.

"Today is an anniversary. Not a happy one, though. Do you have any of those?" He could see only her hands as they clipped at wayward stalks and tossed them onto a growing pile.

"Yes." There were two things he knew about her that might deserve the label of Unhappy Anniversary, and he would have touched her arm, the most comfort he dared to offer her—would have, if he hadn't already pushed her too far today. "So I picked an especially bad morning to piss you off."

She reappeared and dropped the shears on the ledge, then shook her head slowly. "You are a piece of work, McCoy." She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Look, are you here as a doctor? Or do you think you're here as a friend?"

Good question. He wasn't always sure lately, and maybe it didn't matter so much out here.

"Either way, I don't need you."

There was anger in it all right, because it was the easiest thing for her to fall back on, the first emotion she grabbed for out of instinct, and he didn't think he'd have to dig very deep to find what lurked beneath.

"Do you believe in second chances, Nyota?"

"I think people have to earn them, Doctor. You humiliated me—" her voice tightened and she drew a deep, shaky breath. "I'm trying to tell you to leave me alone tonight. Please. I didn't think it was possible, but believe it or not, you're actually making this harder."

He didn't know what to say about that, except the truth. "I believe it, Uhura. And I'll leave. But ask anyone who was there, and they'll tell you that the humiliation belongs to me, not you. So stop using what happened between us to distract yourself from whatever it is that you're truly grieving over today." He stopped at the doorway but didn't turn around, afraid of what he'd see. "I hear we have a briefing tomorrow morning, so I'll see you then."

And even with all that, to his everlasting irritation, it ended up being a sleepless night anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: I apologize that this little story has taken such an unrelentingly grim turn. I think I've been reading too much Hemingway for a class I'm taking; lord help us when it's time for me to move on to Faulkner.

Death, in any form, will be no easier in the twenty-third century, whether it's a patient or a friend or a parent.

* * *

McCoy listened with half an ear, at first, during the briefing. He'd finally teased out all the meaning he could from the cryptic message from home, and his hours of research in the medical library only fueled his growing alarm. He gathered, from the occasional snips of conversation that penetrated the fog of worry enveloping his brain, that they were back en route to the fifth planet in the Havithu system--a backwater, resource-poor desert world so tiny it just barely squeaked past being relegated to plutoid status.

Spock droned on at the head of the table about the politics on the planet, a review really, since they'd been through all of this information just a few weeks ago. Skirting along the tense borders of Federation and Klingon space, Havithu V had no official allegiance to either entity, a status that naturally had both sides tripping over themselves to impress the powers that be. So the Federation maintained an embassy there, ostensibly to promote relations with Havithuun officials, but more importantly to keep an eye on their Klingon counterparts. McCoy suppressed a yawn and passed the time by thinking up what sorts of politically egregious or insulting deeds one would have to commit in order to be appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Havithu.

He knew that every once in a while the ambassador requested assistance from Starfleet in the form of supplies, tactical counsel, and even, as most recently, Fleet personnel. He knew this because, against Kirk's better judgment, two _Enterprise_ crew members had recently been stationed at a central government research lab to provide technical expertise in terraforming. The plan was to return in six weeks to pick up Lieutenants Andrew Loya and Devra Westin.

"But they disappeared approximately three standard days ago."

That got McCoy's attention. When he looked up, Uhura caught his eye and a small smile turned up the corners of her mouth. He almost missed the rest of what Jim said.

"Ambassador Dubburi believes, based on unofficial intelligence, that they were taken by the Hejan, a terrorist group that spends a lot of its time inciting unrest and disrupting the established government."

It was probably time to contribute something, before the captain realized he'd been sitting there doodling on his PADD. "With assistance from the Klingons?" Kirk gave him and his PADD a pointed look and he hastily erased the screen.

"Yes, that's our assumption. That's why we're running silent--the Klingons are certainly on elevated alert status right now, too, in anticipation of a little skirmish over this, and there's no reason to give them a heads up on our involvement or location."

"What is their objective in perpetrating this crime?"

Leave it to Spock to assume that crime is logical and pragmatic. He had to bite his tongue.

Kirk shook his head. "We don't know yet. Of course, Fleet personnel are a high profile target, but historically, their activities have been aimed at creating chaos and panic, not at bringing about change or concessions. So we have to assume they have little interest in cooperating or negotiating, and a great deal of interest in inflicting both real and perceived damage."

"Anarchists." Uhura offered.

"In a word, yes."

"Any ideas how to do that? Get our people out?" McCoy had just realized that he was going to be more involved in this than he wanted, and it was making his hands clammy.

"Dubburi's source has a lead. We'll follow up on it. Bones and Spock, you're coming, and Giotto, get a team together." His gaze shifted to the doctor, but he spoke to Uhura. "We can lift the comm blackout when we enter orbit."

* * *

It turned out that the intel was good, but the timing was not.

The building looked like any other in this run-down part of the city, with boards over most of the windows and no lights to brighten the exterior. Pedestrians scurried past in the murky twilight without looking up from the sidewalk, but even so McCoy sent up a silent thanks to the quartermaster for making sure they didn't stand out from the natives. Having a local guide would have helped, but the Havithuun, wary after a string of retaliatory bombings, seemed content to cede this part of the operation. So Giotto, Harris, and Anderten had disappeared into the shadows with orders to apprehend and detain any unknowns who attempted entry; and Spock was scouting around the building, leaving him with Kirk, where they slouched against the wall in a nearby alleyway filled with a stinking mess of refuse and tried to look inconspicuous.

Jim pulled out a package of something that looked like the hairballs his mom's cat used to spit up when McCoy was a kid, and popped one in his mouth.

"What the _hell_ is that?" The crunching sounds coming from Kirk were making his stomach churn.

"Not sure. The girl in the market said they're some kind of local delicacy." He stopped chewing for a moment and his eyebrows drew together. "Not too bad, I guess. Want one?"

"I'll pass, thanks. But she must have had some damn fine persuasive powers."

He got a low chuckle in return. "Something like that."

McCoy shook his head. He didn't want to admit to lingering nausea from the transport, compounded by the fumes from the rotting garbage, and now the crap his captain was consuming. He jumped and swore out loud when Spock appeared at his side. The man could move like a ninja.

"Calm yourself, Doctor. No entrances besides the front, Captain. Scans indicate one life form inside. Human."

Kirk frowned and grunted at that, then tossed the package--still mostly full, McCoy noted--into the closest bin and coughed a little. McCoy wondered if the thing was going to come back up.

"Feel like a trap to you, Spock?"

The Vulcan considered for a moment. "Insufficient information."

At least he didn't make some smartass remark about Vulcans not _feeling_ anything. McCoy supposed he should count that as progress.

"Well, let's go get some more information." Kirk pushed himself off from the wall.

* * *

  
They finally found her in a windowless room at the bottom of a dank and musty stairwell. The door was locked and Kirk gave it a savage kick, and when it flew open he turned and closed his eyes for an instant and McCoy, bringing up the rear, knew he did not want to see whatever gave rise to the horror on his captain's face.

It took him all of three seconds to determine that Westin was the single human life form Spock had detected. Most of the blood on the walls was dry, and what pooled around Loya's head glistened thickly, and the way his eyes stared at the ceiling told McCoy that something had startled him at the end. A short but wicked blade lay on the floor near him, dark and sticky. And in the corner, folded over like a discarded plaything, was a little girl about Joanna's age. He couldn't think yet about the impossible angle of her neck and the blood that streaked down her legs. The sharp metallic odor of it was strong here, but he was more used to it than the stench outside in the alley.

Before he got to Westin, Kirk had pulled the cover from her head and was working at the binding around her wrists, his fingers patient and sure. After he freed her he leaned back to give McCoy some space and the doctor edged closer to where she crouched against the wall, her knees pulled to her chest. She was splattered with blood but McCoy's scanner told him it wasn't hers, and the abrasions on her wrists and the two fractured ribs could wait a bit until things were sorted out. The hand-shaped contusions around her neck were more worrying, but her larynx and hyoid looked all right, and he made a mental note to keep an eye out for edema later on.

She flinched and tried to twist away when he leaned over and his fingers probed along her jaw. "Easy, now. I'm not gonna hurt you, Devra."

He knew her only in passing--polite hellos exchanged in the lift, an occasional meal at the same table, where she tended to watch and listen--but she had a reputation as being bright (who the hell _wasn't_ bright on the _Enterprise_?) and fiercely independent. "A rock," according to her roommate, "And stubborn as a mule," she added in a way that made McCoy think there was an interesting story there. Well, this would surely shake her to her core.

Her trembling eased a little, enough that he risked a hand on her shoulder, and waited for her eyes to settle on his. But they were too bright and could not stay in one place, and he hoped Jim could see that she wasn't quite here before he started in with the questions. Then she surprised him by speaking first.

"He's coming back." Her voice was faint and hoarse.

"You're safe," said Kirk.

"He'll be back soon."

"You're safe now. Tell me what happened."

She leaned her head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. She was still now, either from exhaustion or the peculiar paralysis that came when the mind could not bear what the body could not escape; McCoy couldn't tell yet which one it was but he supposed it didn't really matter for now.

There was no emotion in her voice when she replied. "I don't remember all of it, sir."

Kirk shifted from one knee to the other and looked sideways at McCoy. He could only shrug in response. Trauma did weird things to people's memories; there was no way around it. Spock had been moving through the room, making notes and taking images with his tricorder, but he now moved closer to listen.

"Start with what you do remember, then. I need to know what's going on before he--or they--come back."

Dubburi had assured them that the Hejan always worked alone or in pairs in order to maximize security and flexibility. But Kirk, even relatively new in his command, knew better than to take anyone else's word when it came to deadly force and insane anarchists.

Her eyes, now glassy and slow, slid to Loya's body. "He wanted me to kill Loya. Said I could choose, either him or the girl. He was recording us, something about sending a message. That's where he went, to get someone else."

Her words were not fitting together and McCoy could see confusion even on Spock's face as she continued. "I wouldn't do it, and Loya wouldn't do it either, he tied us up and we couldn't get away, but we couldn't leave the girl here anyway, so he killed Loya, slit his throat while he looked at me--" she looked down at the dried blood sprayed across her clothes and hands "--and then he was angry, so angry that he took the little girl and he...he hurt her, and she screamed and screamed and he..."

_Broke her neck_, he finished in his head, but the words seemed to stick in his throat, too. From the way she looked into the distance McCoy knew it was happening again in her head, the first of many times to come, and a harbinger of more frightful things that would never completely unravel from her psyche.

Kirk, for once, seemed stunned into silence. After a long moment, Spock coughed once, gently, and Kirk blinked and drew a deep breath.

"You were correct, Captain. His goal was to effect hostility against the Federation."

"Was it just him, just one? Or were there others? Who is he bringing back here?" Kirk's voice rose and his words echoed loudly in the little room, making McCoy wince. Patience was not yet a virtue for Jim Kirk.

"He's coming back," she whispered. "He went to get someone else." He saw the first fissure appear in the shock that was wrapped around her like a soft, distant cocoon. She could surely see it now, too, peeking through the cracks at her, and though she couldn't look at yet, that wouldn't last much longer.

The frustration in the captain's face and the tension knotting his shoulders wouldn't be restrained much longer, either. The doctor touched Kirk's arm without looking at him and steeled himself.

"Listen to me." He leveled a finger in her face. "Just because we managed to get to you in time doesn't mean this is over now, Lieutenant. This is where you have to be strong, I don't care if it hurts like hell, because you're still expected to cooperate and assist in this investigation to the best of your abilities. Is that clear?"

He said it with as much force as his conscience would allow and she looked at him, _really_ looked at him for the first time, and something slammed shut behind her eyes. The voice in his head, the one that sounded too much like Spock sometimes, pointed out that now there would have to be time for _that_ later, too. Kirk shot him a look he couldn't interpret.

She nodded. "Yes. I understand, sir."

Kirk opened his mouth, but was interrupted by a thumping sound and angry voices on the stairs outside the room. Giotto and Anderten appeared, red-faced, half-carrying and half-dragging a man between them.

"Caught him trying to get in, sir," the chief gasped. "He had a kid with him, but she ran off and we couldn't pursue her without losing this one. Harris went after her."

The man straightened and his eyes glittered when he searched out Westin. He was small, at least compared to the other Havithuun they'd seen, but wiry. His lip was split and raw and McCoy matched it up with Giotto's bloody knuckles.

"Have you told them what we've been up to, then?" His smile was oddly tender for her. "Did you tell them how much you enjoyed it, how good it felt like when--"

Kirk shoved him into the wall, pushing Giotto and Anderten to the side, and drove a fist into his gut. "You need to shut the fuck up," he snarled, and was reaching for his phaser when Spock stepped forward and grasped the man's neck, and he slumped to the floor. Kirk was frozen for a minute, his hand on the phaser handle, before he brought his arms up to his chest and folded them there.

"Thank you, Spock," he murmured. Then more loudly, "This is a crime scene. Try not to touch anything else." His orders came rapid-fire now. "Spock, have Uhura patch us in to the Ambassador--he'll need to notify the local authorities of the girl's death. Giotto, make sure he's restrained nice and tight, and leave him there for now. I guess we'll have to turn him over and let justice takes its course. Then call in Harris and tell him to drop the pursuit. Westin, you're here for now. We need to straighten out the jurisdiction, but I imagine the locals will want to take a statement from you. Bones, if she has any injuries you can treat here, now's your chance."

She was still on the floor, exactly as they'd found her not half an hour ago, and he wasn't surprised that she didn't look up when he approached. He couldn't do much for the fractured ribs, or anything else for that matter, but that wasn't the point.

"I can give you something for the pain for now. We can work on the rest when we get back to the ship." He let his words hang in the air, an offering of sorts, and was shocked when she turned her head and smiled.

"It doesn't matter anymore, you know. There's a washroom just outside, under the stairs, I think. Would it be all right if I cleaned up a little first?" The dazed look, the emptiness, was gone, replaced with serenity, and it troubled him more than he cared to admit. But it was a reasonable request, and she was not, after all, a prisoner here anymore.

"Sure." He tried to return her smile as he helped her stand and steadied her until her legs were solid again.

"You're gonna be okay, Devra." Something she'd just said, he couldn't even remember it now, but something was off and he didn't know who he was trying to reassure.

"I know," she replied, and looked right through him. She didn't glance at the man on the floor or the girl as she passed them, and he was distracted by a question from Spock when she paused near Loya. When he looked back, she was gone, and he busied himself by picking through his medkit and trying to ignore the nagging in his head that told him to get up and cover Loya, or pull the girl's dress down and close her eyelids. But it was like the old experiment where they told people not to think of pink elephants or some other nonsense, and it was only after several moments of fighting himself that he noticed she had been gone too long. A knot formed in his stomach and he scanned the room but could not see what he was looking for.

"Jim, did anyone move that knife?"

The frown on Kirk's face, before he could even respond, was answer enough, and he pushed his way quickly through the others who blocked the splintered doorway, and into the small corridor. She hadn't bothered to latch the door to the washroom, and it thudded against something solid on the floor when he flung it open too quickly, then it swung back a little, gently, and when he looked inside he hoped the screaming was all in his head, because it couldn't be coming from her.

* * *

  
"I just sent the autopsy reports to you and the captain."

Spock stood there in the doorway to his office, right in the middle, so the door wouldn't slide shut. He usually left it open, unless he had a patient in here, because he found the little sounds and the conversations that filtered in to be a sort of reassuring background noise when he worked. Truth be told, he'd never been comfortable with too much silence and stillness. His one ill-fated attempt at meditation--at the urging of the wellness coordinator his dean had sent him to in his third year of med school--had actually driven him to drink. _Maybe we should try yoga next time_, she'd suggested helpfully. Of course, he was a proper Southern gentleman, so he very politely recommended that she pull her head out of her _asana_ and, oh yeah, have a lovely day, ma'am.

But tonight he actually wanted silence, and here was Spock, holding the goddamn door open as if...well, as if he were unsure of his welcome. McCoy sighed.

"Come in."

Spock sat on the edge of a chair across from him. "I am not here about the autopsy reports, Doctor. In fact, I have already read them--"

"That's impossible! I just--oh, never mind. What do you want, then?"

The Vulcan leaned forward and rested his chin on steepled fingers. McCoy had seen this pose before, mostly when Spock was in the middle of kicking Jim's ass at chess, and he wondered if this would end in a win for one of them, or, more likely, a draw.

"You are troubled by Lieutenant Westin's death."

_I should have seen it. Right there in front of me. _"Of course I'm troubled by it," he replied testily. "Just like I'm _troubled_ by Loya and that little girl and every other patient I've lost."

"It is the same to you, then? Accidental death, disease, homicide, suicide?"

Those long afternoons in his bioethics class flashed back to him and he marveled at how easy and clear cut it had seemed at the time. "Well, no, not exactly, I guess. Some deaths seem more tragic, more senseless than others, but that's a very subjective thing, a very _human_ thing. In the end, it's all the same."

"True. You are only human, after all, Doctor."

McCoy thought he might have imagined a hint of kindness in the words, but then Spock was off in another direction before he could respond.

"Do you believe an individual has the right to determine the timing and manner of his or her death?"

Oh, he didn't want to go there. Robert Frost be damned, he was sticking to the road well-traveled and not going into any fricking yellow wood with this green hobgoblin today, thank you very much.

"I'm not sure what you're getting at Spock."

"She must have been in a great deal of pain."

The thoughtfulness in his words gave him pause. He'd heard the rumors, only whispers in the hallways really, about a rash of Vulcan suicides after their world was destroyed. It was something he'd puzzled over, trying without success to make it fit in with his limited knowledge of Vulcan spirituality, but he wondered if that was on Spock's mind, brought to the forefront again by Westin. Even he knew better than to ask about that, though. Let him make that move.

"Look, I'm not trying to avoid the issue, Spock. I don't have all the answers." His voice came out sounding more defensive than he expected and he paused to acknowledge and set aside the frustration and anger that was welling up inside him. "It doesn't matter what I think. It's not at all my decision, and that's something we doctors have to deal with all the time. Sometimes people do things--" the image of Westin on the floor almost made him groan "--and we don't have any control over it."

"Indeed." Spock sounded almost pleased, like a tutor with a particularly slow pupil. He scowled at the Vulcan, and in retrospect should have tossed him out right then and there, but he missed his chance.

"Doctor, I have noticed that, while you continue to fulfill your duties in a satisfactory manner, you seem distracted of late. Are you well?"

_Damn_ him. Damn him all the way to hell, where he should fit in just fine. And what a way to bring it up, sneaking it in as if this were some sort of fucking performance review.

"Hey, that's my line," he said, and attempted a smile, but Spock just gazed back at him without expression. He looked down at his desk and picked up a stray datachip and turned it over and over in his hands. "I'm fine, Spock. My father is...not well."

The Vulcan leaned back suddenly in his chair, and a look of mild alarm hovered just beneath his cool facade.

"Don't worry. I'm not gonna cry on you or try to hug you or anything," McCoy said dryly.

Spock's face smoothed, and he breathed a sigh of relief. _Stalemate_.

"What is his prognosis?"

"Terminal." It popped out before he knew it, and it surprised him because it was the first time he'd said it. The first time he'd admitted it to himself, really, and the word felt new and clumsy in his mouth.

"I see." The pieces were fitting together in the Vulcan's head, too, he knew, and the rage that had been simmering in the back of his head cooled into something a little softer, a little easier to look at. He cleared his throat.

"Look Spock, Jim doesn't know yet. No one else knows, so I'd appreciate it if you could keep your mouth shut about it."

An eyebrow went up, and he could see the checkmate coming after all. "Unlike yourself, Doctor, keeping my mouth shut, as you say, is something at which I excel--"

The intercom whistled and Uhura's voice, calm and sure, came through. "Doctor McCoy."

"McCoy here."

"Sir, I have a response, an incoming transmission from a..." she hesitated just an instant, "a Doctor McCoy."

He looked up at Spock, but the door was already sliding shut behind him. McCoy closed his eyes and tried to find himself right here, right now before he reached to flip his monitor on.

"Dad. How're you feeling?"


	4. Chapter 4

I apologize for leaving this story untouched for so long—life got in the way, but it's always been in the back of my mind. Warning: if you're looking for a feel-good story, you'll have to look elsewhere. I don't do happy when it's about McCoy, because he's clearly not a happy man.

* * *

He made the mistake of leaving his comm unit on after his shuttle touched down in Atlanta. It didn't take long for the first message to appear.

_SFvirtualmail /origUSSEntNCC1701/rec Earth, NA/Personal/Encrypt: YES/Priority: MED/SFComm protocol: NO/vid: NO/Receipt: YES_

_FROM: Kirk, James T. Captain, USS Enterprise_

_SENT: SD 2734.3 _

_TO: McCoy, Leonard_

_SUBJECT: Status_

_Just wanted to see how you're doing. _

He deleted that one.

_SFvirtualmail /origUSSEntNCC1701/rec Earth, NA/Personal/Encrypt: YES/Priority: HIGH/SFComm protocol: NO/vid: NO/Receipt: YES_

_FROM: Kirk, James T. Captain, USS Enterprise_

_SENT: SD 2736.5 _

_TO: McCoy, Leonard_

_SUBJECT: Read your damn mail_

_McCoy—_

_I swear I have more important things to worry about than your sorry ass, so send me a message already. _

He deleted this one, too. He should have turned it off right then. He was on leave, for chrissakes.

_SFvirtualmail /origUSSEntNCC1701/rec Earth, NA/Personal/Encrypt: YES/Priority: HIGH/SFComm protocol: NO/vid: NO/Receipt: YES_

_FROM: Kirk, James T. Captain, USS Enterprise_

_SENT: SD 2740.1 _

_TO: McCoy, Leonard_

_SUBJECT: Ignoring a superior officer will get you in trouble_

_I know your comm is on because Uhura says you're using it. I didn't ask her to check; she did it on her own, so don't rip her a new one. She's still mad at you, in case you were wondering. _

_We're scheduled for maintenance at Earth Spacedock in a few weeks. I want to talk to you before then, and I don't want to pull rank to make it happen._

He decided to respond to this one.

_SFvirtualmail /origEarth, NA/recUSSEntNCC1701/ /Personal/Encrypt: YES/Priority: HIGH/SFComm protocol: NO/vid: NO/Receipt: YES_

_FROM: McCoy, Leonard _

_SENT: SD 2741.9 _

_TO: Kirk, James T. Captain, USS Enterprise_

_SUBJECT: RE: Ignoring a superior officer will get you in trouble_

_The funeral is tomorrow. I have 21 days of bereavement leave. I am turning my comm off now so kindly leave me the fuck alone. Sir._

* * *

_There is no such thing as a good day for a funeral_, he thought. It was January, the coldest month of the year around here, and though technically not the darkest month, it was the gloomiest. The holiday decorations had been packed away, the air was blurry with a persistent chilly gray drizzle, and it felt like the entire city had a psychic hangover. Today the drizzle was turning heavier, and he wondered why he hadn't brought an umbrella.

Judging by the size of the crowd at the memorial service and the many tearful eulogies, there was no question that Dr. David McCoy had been loved by his patients and respected by his colleagues. Not that his son had ever doubted as much; he'd long secretly envied his father's easy way with even the most difficult patients and his ability to charm his way out of notoriously-vicious hospital politics. He could never measure up to his father, but he'd long ago accepted that this was every son's lot in life, in one way or another.

A much smaller group was gathered here, under the cover of an old maple tree near the edges of a small cemetery on the outskirts of the city. His father was old-fashioned in many ways, and had insisted upon a real burial, in the ground, with an officiant presiding, none of which was easy to arrange. Cremation was by far the prevalent method these days, but the elder McCoy was nothing if not stubborn—at least he came by it honestly, he thought—and so here they were, standing in the rain around a hole in the ground.

Jocelyn had declined to attend, and she was even civil about it. She'd kept Joanna away, too, for which he was grateful. He knew from the confusion in her eyes that she was too young to fully grasp the idea that her grandfather was completely and irrevocably gone. Hell, he was having trouble with it. It would take time, and he told himself that there was no point in upsetting her now, before she was ready.

The first shovelful of dirt hit the top of the coffin with a wet _thunk_ and he looked across at his mother. She stood apart, with her head held high and her face an expressionless mask that he knew from experience would quietly crack apart later. She might let him hold her then, but she had always found it easier to give comfort than receive it, and that was something he had learned to respect in her.

"For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." The ancient words broke through his thoughts and he looked at the speaker, recognizing her as the chaplain at his father's hospital. The dirt rained down steadily now, and he heard a soft, strangled sob coming from his left. He was flanked by his aunt and uncle, his father's sister and her husband, and he thought he should do or say something to her, but he found that he was overcome with apathy. So he stood watching his mother again, and wondered if they were more or less alike than he'd thought.

He had not cried. Not since that day—and that memory was too sharp, too fresh for him to linger over it. His mind flitted around it like a moth to a flame: he was drawn to those final moments with his father, but the pain drove him away before he could settle on it. It would be there; he knew it was patiently waiting for him. But for now, he was uninterested in forcing his way through the cocoon of numbness that surrounded him.

His aunt collapsed to the ground beside him, and he watched as from a distance as his uncle rushed to her side and gathered her in his arms, rocking her gently. This sensation of being outside of himself, of watching himself and those around him, didn't worry him. He welcomed it, knowing it would pass soon enough, and then he might miss it.

The chaplain closed the book she was holding and they watched as the top of the coffin disappeared beneath the clumps of dirt. After this, there would be the wake, a houseful of well-meaning friends and family, too much food, and, he feared, not enough alcohol. But this was how it was done in the South, an inviolable tradition that must be endured. And then there would be silence, and the staleness of a house too little used, and he would have plenty of time to contemplate the events of the last few days. Events that he had set into motion, he reminded himself, and the moth bumped up against the flame.

"_Let me go, son. You have to do this for me. Now, while I can still ask." _He was not surprised by the request, and his father wasn't the first person to ask it of him. But this was different, of course, and he agonized before finally agreeing, although every instinct in him protested. Going through the formal processes, acquiring the necessary drugs and completing the endless forms, made it feel like any other clinical procedure up until the final moment, and he was glad for that. Now he told himself, a litany he repeated over and over, that he was only preserving free will and dignity. And maybe he was, and maybe he would someday accept his action for what it was. But not yet.

* * *

That night, after his mother had finally walked the last guest to the door, he pulled out the bottle of Jack Daniel's hidden in the back of his father's liquor cabinet—not the first time, but maybe the last—and turned his comm back on. As he expected, a message from Kirk sat at the top of his inbox, and his finger hovered over it for a moment as he debated whether to open it. "What the hell," he mumbled, and stabbed at the touch screen.

_SFvirtualmail /origUSSEntNCC1701/rec Earth, NA/Personal/Encrypt: YES/Priority: HIGH/SFComm protocol: NO/vid: NO/Receipt: YES_

_FROM: Kirk, James T. Captain, USS Enterprise_

_SENT: SD 2742.9 _

_TO: McCoy, Leonard_

_SUBJECT: (None)_

_I'm sorry, Bones. _

He stared at the words glowing on the screen for a long while before deleting it and pouring another drink.


	5. Chapter 5

McCoy always says a little suffering is good for the soul, so he's going to get a taste of his own medicine here. We know from The Movie That Must Not Be Named that he felt guilty over his role in his father's death, and we know from TOS ("Court Martial") that he is considered "an expert in psychology" (I'm sure the writers meant _psychiatry._ Or maybe not. Who knows? )—so I took some liberties and came up with a little backfill. No worries, I'll get him back on the _Enterprise_ soon.

* * *

God, he hated this. He stood by the door, palms suddenly clammy, heart thudding, his skin prickly. He fought the urge to turn and run back to the lift and take it all the way back down, all eighty-two floors, to the lobby of Starfleet Medical Academy and catch the next shuttle back to Georgia where he belonged. _Pull yourself together, McCoy, and stop being an infant, _he scolded himself._ It's not a big deal, one and done and I'm outta here_. He straightened his shoulders and tried to tug his jacket into place, but it seemed to have become too large in the week since the funeral. And he felt slightly off-balance without his medkit and comm unit. _You're crazy if you think this is a just a visit with an old friend_, came the sour reply,and he swallowed a groan as the door slid open.

"Why, hello there, Leonard. It's so good to see you. Come in." Not many people called him that, but he'd never minded it from her. The woman standing in the doorway looked exactly as she had the last time he'd seen her: an open, kind face framed by wavy hair that was more golden than silver, and a cardigan over her uniform instead of the regulation red jacket. She opened her arms to him.

"Hello, Anna." He had a good thirty centimeters on her and he had to lean over to return her embrace.

"Please, come in. Sit down." She smiled warmly up at him, and raised an eyebrow when he hesitated at the door. "Now, you know I don't bite, Leonard. Come in and make yourself comfortable. Would you like some tea?"

He followed her across her office and sank into the armchair by the window, what he thought of as _his_ chair, though of course hundreds of people must have sat there, putting up their best defenses only to have this woman steadily whittle away at them. McCoy had never been her patient, but he had spent more hours than he could count here, many of them instructive but few of them pleasant.

"Sure. Yes, thank you." He didn't like hot tea—tea that wasn't ice cold and sweet was a sin against nature—but it was a ritual in this space so he had always gone along with it, unable to confess this deception to her.

"Chamomile sounds good today, don't you think?" She turned away to assemble the teapot and then rummaged through her shelves for tea bags, giving him time to settle and take in his surroundings. The same cluttered desktop in the corner, books—real paper books—piled to the top of her shelves, a worn and exquisitely woven rug over the drab gray Starfleet issue carpet. His eyes strayed to the wall beside him and took in the frames hanging there, many of them familiar but some new ones as well. Images of her beloved Switzerland and a couple of Anna with friends at a lake and at the Eiffel Tower. Photos of her family, he knew, were kept only on her desk, for reasons he had never asked about. Alongside the pictures on the wall were framed diplomas, certificates, and awards, all lauding the success and accomplishments of Dr. Anna Seifert. _Commodore_ Seifert that is, head of Starfleet Medical's psychiatric division and director of its residency program. And so she was also, as fate would have it, McCoy's former supervisor for the two years he had struggled through the program, for better or worse.

"It's always a pleasure to see an old friend and colleague," she said, and he tried to focus on her again. "You've been quite busy lately, I hear. You still like it with sugar, no cream, yes?" She paused and gave him a mischievous smile as she handed him a saucer and teacup. "Any regrets, or did we make the right call?" He took a sip and suppressed a grimace, partly at the tea and partly at the memory that popped into his head. There was no doubt as to her meaning.

He forced a smile. "I don't recall that there was any _we_ about it, Anna." Her eyes crinkled when she returned his smile.

* * *

Halfway through his first year at the Academy, he was already bored with the endless immunizations, routine physicals, athletic injuries, and sexually transmitted diseases that came through the Academy clinic. During one seemingly endless night shift he'd griped to Chapel over his third cup of coffee, and she'd looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then busied herself with organizing supplies as she replied.

"Dr. Seifert has an opening in the psych residency program. You could learn from her, McCoy. Think about it."

He'd thought about it all right, and as it turned out his decision was easier than clearing all the bureaucratic hurdles. But the next thing he knew, he was a resident again and up to his eyeballs with intakes, seminars, case conferences, treatment plans—and God help them, actual patients who expected him to heal them even when all the neuro-imaging and psychopharmacology in the universe were inconclusive or ineffective. And then there was individual supervision—meetings that he supposed were intended to insure the residents were doing more good than harm—and that was where Dr. Seifert came into the picture. His final discussion with her was burned into his memory, an unscheduled meeting shortly after a particularly disastrous session with a new patient.

"The goal of therapy, Leonard, is to evoke, not provoke. There is a time to push, and a time to follow." For the first time, he heard an edge creep into her voice, and he winced, feeling like a child who is scolded by his mother. "You are an excellent diagnostician, and you have an unusual talent for hearing what is unsaid. I also know you have a great deal of compassion, try as you might to conceal it, but I'm afraid your clinical skills have not developed as I had hoped and expected. You lack patience, Leonard."She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, then softened her tone."Surgery was your first love, and should you decide to return to it, I will support your decision. It would be preferable to a formal warning and probationary period in your record."

It was not a threat, he knew, just a statement of fact, and he really wasn't surprised. A little disappointed in himself, certainly, but lurking behind the disappointment, a small corner of his mind sighed in relief. He appreciated the opportunity to bow out gracefully, and opened his mouth to say as much, but she wasn't done with him.

"Perhaps this need to direct others rather than allowing them to find their own way is something you should explore, Leonard. I suspect it is not confined to your therapeutic relationships."

Something deep inside of him suspected that she was right, but that impatience, that need to smack people upside the head with the truth, had gone unexplored until his recent return to Georgia. There he had seen it, finally, as he spent the last days of his father's life beside his hospital bed, and realized the twin image of it in himself, and marveled at how blind he'd been all these years.

* * *

Sudden voices in the hallway outside brought him back to the present. He heard the lift arrive and the voices, and whomever they belonged to, abruptly quieted.

"Yes, you made the right call. No regrets," he said, and realized that while he'd been absorbed in memories she had taken her place across from him, in the same faded red wing chair, where her face was lit by the low, gentle rays of the setting sun. He met her eyes. They were a soft brown, and they were filled with a mixture of concern and clinical assessment that had never before been directed at him. She dropped a sugar cube into her tea and tilted her head as she studied him.

"I don't think this a social visit after all, is it? How I can help you?"

Well, that was the question, wasn't it? What did he expect her to help him with? The nightmares about Westin? The empty bottles, more than he wanted to count now, replaced carefully in the cabinet in hopes that no one would notice? Or, let's get right to it, how about the evening last week, after a long day of helping his mother pack up his dad's office, when he had taken a few moments to catch up on the journals piled up in his inbox. The numb haze he'd been in since the funeral had given way to horror, and then self-loathing, when he'd stumbled across a blurb tucked away near the end of the latest issue of the _Journal of the Federated Medical Association_. The rare disease that had ravaged his father's lungs, long considered incurable and even untreatable, was the subject of a new study being conducted on Centaurus, with promising results in the preliminary data. He'd been overtaken by chills and a raging headache, and had barely made it to the bathroom before his dinner decided it was no longer happy in his stomach.

She was waiting for him. _Not pushing_, he noted wryly. He would swear something shifted in the shadows behind her, and he closed his eyes quickly against what he knew he would see there. Hallucinations were not an uncommon occurrence in the human grief process, and were certainly exacerbated by sleep deprivation—he knew this, but that knowledge didn't make it any easier to cope with the image of his father that kept appearing just at the edge of his field of vision.

He opened his eyes and forced his gaze to the corner, where of course there was no sign of the late David McCoy. His teacup rattled against the saucer in the silence and he quickly placed both of them on the table next to him, a ridiculous dainty little table with one of those lacy things on top. And a box of tissues, which he had never used. His hands, clammy again, clenched the arms of his chair, and her eyes, which missed nothing, flickered there.

"Try to relax, Leonard." This was the same voice he'd heard countless times in the emergency room, the one she used to soothe distraught patients, and he wondered from a distance if he was one of Them now. She reached out to touch his hand, then returned to her tea, watching him as she swirled her spoon around the teacup until the sugar cube bobbed in lazy circles. He focused his attention on her hands until he trusted himself to speak.

"I just killed my father, Anna." There. It was out, and there was no going back. The tension evaporated all at once and he was left exhausted, shaky, with a deep throbbing behind his eyes. He tried to remember when he last ate, and couldn't.

To her credit, she didn't even blink and the spoon didn't stop. She finished stirring until the sugar dissolved, placed the spoon carefully on the saucer, then raised the cup to her lips and took a long sip before replying.

"Well, now. Why don't you tell me more about that, and then we'll find you a nice hot meal and a place to rest for a while."

He stared at her, squinting, but couldn't seem to bring her face into focus now. He _was_ tired, he suddenly realized. More than tired. Was it that obvious? She reached for the tissues beside him and he couldn't figure out why she needed them, why she would be crying, because he sure the hell wasn't feeling anything, but maybe—then she placed one in his hand and he realized with some shock that the tears were not hers after all, and he surrendered to it.


	6. Chapter 6

_SFvirtualmail /origUSSEntNCC1701/rec Earth, NA/Personal/Encrypt: YES/Priority: HIGH/SFComm protocol: NO/vid: NO/Receipt: YES_

_FROM: Kirk, James T. Captain, USS Enterprise_

_SENT: SD 2764.2 _

_TO: McCoy, Leonard_

_SUBJECT: Transfer request_

_Meet me in the 3__rd__ floor Officer's Lounge at 0800 tomorrow._

_

* * *

FROM: systemadminSFvirtualmail _

_SENT: SD 2764.2 _

_TO: Kirk, James T._

_SUBJECT: Undeliverable: Transfer request_

_Your message could not be delivered. The address in question has exceeded its storage limit. _

_The following recipient(s) could not be reached: __McCoy, Leonard_

* * *

"God_damn _you, Bones. We're running out of time," he said under his breath. But he knew from the tilt of Spock's head that the Vulcan had heard and was now carefully pretending he hadn't.

McCoy was so predictable in so many ways, though. "Henderson," he said, more sharply than he'd intended. The junior comm officer jumped a little and swiveled around.

"Sir?"

"I need you to find some residential coordinates for me." He squinted at the planet displayed on the screen, waiting for the familiar outlines of North America to slide into view. He frowned at the massive weather system that obscured much of the southeastern quadrant of the continent, and paused at Spock's station to pull up a weather report.

"Holy shit. Is that a _blizzard_? In Atlanta?"

* * *

If he'd wanted quiet, this was not the place to come. The park, just a few blocks from his house, was filled with kids in their brightly colored coats, wrapped up in scarves and hats and mittens that came off as soon as their parents weren't looking. He resisted the urge to walk over there and lecture them about frostbite; but with their stockpile of snowballs, he was outnumbered and outgunned. Better to stay at a safe distance and mind his own business.

The snow had eased off to an occasional flake here and there, and the neighborhood children, who had been inside for two days while one of the heaviest snowfalls on record made its way across Georgia, were finally free. He imagined he heard a collective sigh of relief from all the parents in the houses along this tree-lined street, grateful for a few minutes of peace.

But he didn't want quiet. Staying out of the line of fire was a priority, though, so he had found a refuge, a bench tucked away under a tall, bare-limbed tree just far enough from the runaway sleds, the chases, and all the screaming and shouting. Here he could sit and think, even among this chaos, because those kids weren't the only ones who were tired of being cooped up. With the clearing skies, local shuttle service had resumed, and his mother had left this morning for an extended visit with her sister in Savannah. The house was empty and silent and now did not feel much like home.

A movement at the corner of his eye, slower than the frenetic energy around him, caught his attention. It was a figure approaching, in a dark coat, and certainly too tall for a child. He squinted, and groaned as Jim Kirk stopped in front of him.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Kirk ignored this and swept the dusting of snow from the bench before settling down next to McCoy.

"Oh, please, sit down and join me. Make yourself at home. It's not an intrusion at all, really."

"You look like shit, Bones."

"Thanks. They recruit you for the diplomatic corps yet?" That was lame, he thought with disgust. Even his carefully honed sarcasm had been dulled by the last few weeks.

"Where have you been?"

"I've been around," he replied, waving his hands vaguely through the air. He held out a packet of small, knobby brown objects. "Want one? Nothing better than brown sugar pecans."

"No. Around?" Kirk repeated.

"Yeah, _around_. Was I supposed to keep a diary for you?"

He had no intention of telling Kirk where he'd been. The time he spent with Anna had grounded him, given him the strength to take a good hard look over the proverbial edge of the abyss, and to decide he didn't want to go there. Only a first, tentative step back, a bandage on a gunshot wound, as they used to say. It was enough for now, but the abyss was still there, filled with guilt he could not yet believe was irrational.

As he'd left her office the last time, she looked up at him and seemed unsure what to say. Finally she gave him a small smile and patted his arm.

_Take care of yourself out there, Leonard._

_Because no one else will?_

The words came out before he even heard them in his mind, and she didn't reply, just looked at him, because they both already knew the answer.

_So no_, he thought firmly to himself, _there is no chance in hell of pulling that bandage up, even just a little, to let anyone take a peek. Not even James Kirk_.

"You know you were supposed to report in thirty hours ago?"

Alarm spread across McCoy's face as he mentally added up hours, days, weeks.

"I guess I lost track of time."

"And I guess you forgot to check your messages, too, because you were supposed to meet me this morning to talk about this," he said, pulling a piece of paper from his coat pocket and waving it under McCoy's nose. "Capella? Really, Bones? What the hell is this about?"

McCoy slouched down into his coat and studied a copse of trees across the park."I have unfinished work there."

"You really want to throw your career away to teach health ed to people who believe 'survival of the fittest' should be the motto for the alpha quadrant?"

The disbelief and anger in his voice was unmistakable, but McCoy had anticipated it. He popped a nut into his mouth and chewed for a moment before replying. "It's my career and my life, Jim."

Kirk gave him a withering glare. "You're a goddamn fucking hypocrite, McCoy." His voice rose and a mother walking by with two toddlers in tow gave them a scandalized look.

"Sorry, ma'am, sorry about that, he'll watch his language from now on." McCoy called out as she marched on, and Kirk lowered his voice to a furious whisper. "You remember that psychobabble shit you used to shove down my throat? _You can't run away from what's inside you, kiddo_." It was a passable imitation of McCoy's drawl, and the doctor suppressed a smile. "Well, you already ran away from the crazy bitch and now you think you can run away from this, this, whatever it is that's got you so scared? I thought—" he broke off and looked at the sidewalk, and some of the anger seemed to melt from him. "Did you think you could just walk away and no one would notice? No one would—"

_Would what_? McCoy wondered, knowing he would never hear the rest of that sentence. He sighed and shook his head. "That's not what's going on. This is different, Jim. Just let me move on."

He appeared so unperturbed by Kirk's accusations—so calm as he leaned back against the bench, munching his pecans, looking about as unkempt as the first time they'd met—that Kirk believed him. He reached toward McCoy. "I'll have one of those pecans now." The two sat in silence, the childrens' laughter and shrieks carrying easily across the park, at once muffled and amplified by the deep blanket of snow.

McCoy wondered if Joanna was outside playing, too, making snow angels or maybe trying to catch a snowflake on her tongue. She had never seen snow before.

Kirk drummed his fingers on the arm of the bench, interrupting his daydream. "I didn't know it snowed like this here." He was trying to sound casual, and McCoy decided to play along for now.

"Not often. Once in a blue moon, as my grandma would say."

"You ever do that?" He nodded toward the kids sliding down the hill on their makeshift sleds.

McCoy stopped chewing for a minute and a half-smile flitted across his face. "Yeah, we did that." He snorted. "And ended up with our fair share of broken bones and a concussion or two. They must be making kids smarter these days—" he pointed at the clearing—"because for some reason it never occurred to us that it might be a good idea to avoid the trees."

Kirk smiled, but it was perfunctory. He was stalling, McCoy realized with surprise. He wasn't sitting out here freezing his ass off just to have a chit-chat with his wayward, soon-to-be former CMO. Something was going on in that screwed up, complicated head of his, and he was still working it out. With a quick glance at his friend he read the dread in his eyes and waited, expecting an awkward _I'm really sorry . . . don't know how you feel, but…_ or maybe _Is this the right time to be making life changing decisions, I mean, you know . . ._

_He's not very good at this_, McCoy thought. But then, empathy was a skill best learned early in life, and from what he knew of Jim's childhood, he guessed no one had ever taught him.

So when he finally drew a deep breath and spoke, Kirk's words surprised him.

"They say my father was a hero."

A stray snowball whizzed by within centimeters of McCoy's ear. He considered scooping up some snow and joining in the fight, then decided he was too old and it wouldn't be fair for all the little kids anyway. He sighed and asked the question he knew Kirk wanted from him. "You don't think so?"

Kirk pinned him with a stare, and McCoy was taken aback by the intensity in his eyes. "Okay, so he did something that saved a lot of lives, Bones. But people don't think about all the hundreds of things that could have happened differently that day—what if Robau had turned away from the anomaly before Nero's ship appeared, or what if he'd refused to go over there, or what if they'd just had a little more time to think about options and strategies? Maybe no one had to die that day, Bones."

McCoy shrugged, wondering where Jim was going with this. More stalling, probably. "But that's how it happened. He made the best decision he could with the information he had—they all did."

"Exactly." He said the word with great satisfaction. "He did the best he could in the situation he was handed. Just like you."

McCoy was momentarily speechless. _Well, shit, I just walked right into that one._ He leaned his head back and looked up at the low hanging clouds, leaden with the promise of more snow. And wondered how the hell Jim Kirk knew of the circumstances of his father's death, the hundred little things that could have happened differently. And then decided he probably didn't want to know after all.

Kirk hunched over and wrapped his arms around himself against the cold. "My mother…" His hand tightened around the paper, crinkling it, and he looked down at it in surprise. Smoothed it against his knee before continuing. "My mother has never understood that. She's never forgiven herself for leaving him behind. She's never forgiven him for leaving her."

_And she's never forgiven you, has she?_ he thought almost reflexively.

"Don't let that happen, Bones. That's all I'm saying. Hell, maybe you do need to get away and think about it for a while . . . " he trailed off, then he sat up, a frown creasing his forehead and erasing all traces of his contemplative self. "But this temporary CMO you recommended . . . "

"Yeah?"

"He's an asshole, Bones. I mean, you can be an asshole, too, but for some reason people like you anyway. This guy has terrorized the crew—Chekov had his physical last week and he's been twitchy ever since, I hear Chapel is organizing a coup in sickbay, and even Spock is on edge. I beat him at chess last night and I thought he was gonna stroke out, right there in the rec room. If you don't come back—" he looked down at his boots and shook his head.

"Gregory House is a brilliant physician."

Kirk looked over at him, his eyes deepened to a steely blue. "He has to go, McCoy. Find me someone competent, someone I can tolerate, before you leave."

_Someone who can tolerate you, too. _He bit back the words before they escaped, and just nodded.

Kirk pulled a pen out of his pocket and turned away from McCoy to smooth the paper out flat against the wooden slats of the bench. He wrote, the scratch of the pen against the paper barely audible over the shrieks from the hill. With a sigh, he capped the pen, stood, and folded the paper back into a crisp rectangle.

"Here." He thrust the paper at McCoy. "You can sign it, and show up at your new assignment by 0600 tomorrow. Or," he continued, "you can turn your friggin comm back on and request transport back to the ship before we depart in—" he checked his watch—"seven hours and thirty-two minutes." He clapped McCoy's shoulder and gave him a deep, searching look. "Do what you have to do, Bones."

And he turned and trudged through the snow without a backward glance. For some reason, this refusal of a final farewell bothered McCoy more than Kirk's earlier anger. He finished the pecans and sat until the afternoon sun disappeared behind the treetops and the children disappeared into the warmth of their homes. The chill deepened, the clouds thickened, and he shivered and realized his toes were numb.

"Goddammit," he muttered. He fumbled in his pocket, his hands cold and clumsy through his sugar-coated gloves, and found his comm. Winced as it displayed the first of his one thousand and fifty-three unread messages.

"_Enterprise_. One to beam up." There was a delay of a few seconds before Uhura responded.

"_Enterprise_ here, Doctor McCoy. You have a few cargo loads ahead of you, so it will be just a moment."

"Thanks." He switched the comm off and looked around, wondering how long it would be before he could return. He groused to himself about being third in line behind a bunch of cargo crates, unfolded and refolded the paper, suddenly restless and fidgety and already wondering how long it would take for Chekov to show up at his office. He glanced at the paper and the signature line at the bottom caught his eye. He stared at it in disbelief. _Christ on a crutch. What a fucking arrogant little prick._ Kirk had not signed his name. The words, in handwriting neater than he expected, dissolved as the transporter caught him up in its beam: Welcome home, Bones. See you at breakfast tomorrow.


End file.
